Report: Coach-challenge replay system to be tested in summer league

Las Vegas Summer League coaches are participating in a test of a potential NBA replay challenge system next month.

Coaches in the NFL and MLB use a challenge system to trigger replays. The NBA is weighing the parameters that will be used, but the expectation is Summer League will become a testing ground for the types of plays that lead to team challenges via replay.

Executive vice president of basketball operations Kiki VanDeWeghe confirmed Sunday the NBA is ready to test the merits of challenge-based replay.

“We’ve wanted to do it for years,” VanDeWeghe told Sirius XM NBA Radio on Sunday night. “The competition committee has been trying to figure out how we actually do this, because there’s some complications. It’s not quite as simple as you might imagine. We’ve had it in the G League for a number of years now and it’s been very effective. We’re going to try it in a very limited form in Summer League and we’re going to see how it goes. We’re going to let everybody look at it.”

However, new challenge rules are not expected to be to put in place for the 2018-19 NBA season, VanDeWeghe said.

Each offseason the NBA adjusts rules around the specifics of reviewable plays and the power granted officials to make any changes after plays are complete.

NBA G-League currently allows coaches one challenge each game, limited to fouls, goaltending and out of bounds calls.

Dallas Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle, president of the NBA Coaches Association, said he would support giving coaches the right to challenge.

“For me, it’s not so much about the power of having a challenge, it’s really another layer of protection if a call is missed. Officials aren’t perfect. They’re men, not machines,” Carlisle told Sirius XM.